Villanova womens team question

Talk to the coach. visit the campus join them on a run

Thank you, and understood. I am also looking for others past experiences as well as the current team.

go ahead and email the coaches or assistants. they can give you the best perspective on training and team dynamics and maybe set up a visit for you so you could meet the girls at some point. their emails are all firstname.lastname@villanova.edu. the walk-on standards are 5:10 for the mile and 10:45 for the 3000m. best of luck!

I was sort of recruited by villanova when I graduated high school- when they were talking with me I had PRs that were very similar to yours. I graduated high school in 2001, I think Gina was coaching there by that point, but I remember being told that maybe I was not the caliber runner they were looking for.

I ended my senior year with huge PRs in 1500 and 3k that would have been the caliber runner they were looking for, and went on to run for a different but similar school where I had success.

This is just my experience with them almost 10 years ago but keep in mind that I am not sure if Gina was the one who recruited me or not- these interviews say she's been coaching there for 9 years which would put her near that time. I do know that I talked to a female coach back then.

Just give it a shot! Call her or email her and say that you are interested in the team, you feel you can make improvements in college, and you want to contribute to their program. Can't hurt to try. Some of the best runners start out as walk-ons or kids who a coach took a chance on.

Look at the roster for the team on the website which should have PRs or performances listed- some teams take girls who are not as fast as their top girls and maintain a larger roster, some teams take 10-12 high quality girls and don't bother with "slower" runners. They also might have an archives section on the website where you can look through the last few years and see if they are running girls possibly in off-meets (where their A team isn't running) who are comparable to you.

I have spent some time around the Nova program and can tell you they have plenty of girls around that ability level. You won't be going to the big meets, or traveling to Oregon for meets, but you will run at the local meets they go to. They go to meets at Haverford, Swarthmore, Princeton, and some other local schools where they take JV runners.

Villanova is a fun school, a nice school, and a very very strong academic institution. I say give them a call or an e-mail! What do you have to lose? After all, it is about the education for 99% of runners.

had it several times wrote:

Thank you, and understood. I am also looking for others past experiences as well as the current team.

Why did you change your posting name????? Are you a troll?

If you are not - with those (respectable) times you could get a healthy scholarship at Rutgers, Stony Brook, Shippensburg and a plethora of other Atlantic seaboard schools.

Don't be seduced by the "national champion" tag. You would be a tadpole in a big pond.

Go somewhere that would impact YOU.

I am many things, but not a troll. Nor am I the original poster. I am seriously considering Villanova also, albeit for acedemic reasons, though my times right now are not at the walk on standards.

You are definitely outside of what Nova looks for, but they have a very inclusive program and they have what you might call a JV team, which you will fit in nicely with. Like someone else said, you want be traveling to the big meets and likely will not be coached by Gina. Nova also has a great all around college student experience and acedemics, which are things to consider depending on your priorities.

Btw, with your stats, you could get money at a lot of D2 programs and perhaps some D1 programs if you improve just a little bit.

TrackCoach,

A 10:25 3K girl would get a LOT of money from many many DI's. This is a sub 11:10 3200m runner which is a big recruit for most mid-majors outside of the nation's elite but still battling for a mid-major conference title.

check out st. joseph's down the road. d1 school, great education. not the quality team or depth that nova has, but they have put out all-americans and individual qualifiers.

Don't put St. Joe's in the same sentence. There are better D2 programs in PA if you want a non-Nova school. If you're willing to go to the ghetto, LaSalle has a great team. They have a chip on their shoulders, but their like a street gang. In the D2 realm, you have Ship, Slippery Rock, Bloomsburg, etc. Some of the top D2 national teams.